Bitch Media - The New York Timeshttp://bitchmagazine.org/taxonomy/term/5491/0
enDouchebag Decree: Ginia Bellafante, Hater of all Non-Momshttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/douchebag-decree-ginia-bellafante-hurricane-sandy-moms
<p style="padding-left: 90px;"><a title="douchedecree by bitch_magazine, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitchmagazine/3008635758/"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3214/3008635758_a8c6604670.jpg" alt="douchedecree" width="494" height="199" /></a></p>
<p>The most frustrating fact about&nbsp;<a title="Sunday column on Hurricane Sandy moms" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/nyregion/mothers-find-a-calling-in-volunteer-work-after-hurricane-sandy.html?_r=2&amp;" target="_self"><em>New York Times</em>&nbsp;columnist Ginia Bellafante's&nbsp;Sunday column</a>, "After Hurricane, a New Calling for Mothers"&nbsp;is not that it's sexist. It's that it&nbsp;<em>so easily</em>&nbsp;could have avoided being sexist. People? Volunteering to help other people, because they have the time and resources to do so? Great! Newsworthy! Heart-warming! But Bellafante (and her editors, who deserve honorary Decrees) decided it was critical to their journalistic project to insult and exclude fathers. To say nothing (literally, never mentioned) of alternative parents of any kind. Twice&nbsp;<a title="Women Only Like Shows with Sex in Them." href="http://tv.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/arts/television/game-of-thrones-begins-sunday-on-hbo-review.html" target="_blank">nominated</a>, once victorious: This Decree's for you, Ginia.</p>
<p>Bellafante's writing on gender has been criticized before, first in 1998 when her <a title="Remember Ally McBeal?" href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988616,00.html" target="_blank"><em>Time</em> cover story</a> about feminism's failings earned a <a title="Erica Jong&gt;Chuck Norris" href="http://www.ericajong.com/nyobserver980713.htm" target="_blank">vitriolic (and deserved) response</a> from Erica Jong, and most notably in 2011, when her <a title="Women &lt;3 rape scenes! " href="http://tv.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/arts/television/game-of-thrones-begins-sunday-on-hbo-review.html" target="_blank"><em>Game of Thrones</em> review</a> claimed women wouldn't watch the quasi-historical fantasy show if it didn't have such explicit sex scenes. In that review, as in her Sandy relief article, Bellafante seemed to be aiming for empathy but landing on alienating and offensive. She called the show's pandering to sex-crazed women "patronizing," but failed to see how calling the entire fantasy genre "boy fiction" was just as problematic.</p>
<p>This Sunday's column, too, had good intentions: to point out a cool, philanthropic bevy of New York mothers. But what the column actually did was tell non-moms they're useless. Bellafante's writing was eyebrow-raising from line one, but the real Carnival de Douche happens in the rest of the lede:</p>
<blockquote><p>God could not be everywhere, as the proverb goes, so he created mothers. Fathers misplace their children at the supermarket; mothers miraculously transform tofu to make it palatable to 3-year olds. Mothers grow indignant when the world isn't as it should be. They carry placards and mobilize, often seeing themselves as the only custodians of sanity and efficiency left.</p></blockquote>
<p>Oh, dads. Maybe all those <a title="Sarah Haskins, We Love You." href="http://current.com/shows/infomania/90569059_sarah-haskins-in-target-women-doofy-husbands.htm" target="_blank">commercials</a> <em>were </em>right about you! If only you could figure out how to get your shoes on, I'm sure you'd be able to remember where you left your kids. But don't worry too hard. There's likely a Brooklyn brownstone empty-nester captial-M Mom taking care of them, wherever they are, feeding them uber-palatable tofu on the drive from Park Slope to Queens, where she's building a refugee center with her bare hands. You just trip over your own feet all the way back to your man cave and relax. Mama's got this one.</p>
<p>In addition to the more glaring shortcomings of Bellafante's piece, it's worth noting that the magical unicorn mothers don't make out all that well, either. Unless you think getting called a "Real Housewife of Relief" is a compliment. On a deeper level, too, women being pegged the Only Capable Caregivers In All The Land does not actually do anyone any favors. In that model, moms are expected to be one-dimensional baby whisperers, and everyone else is expected to continue on their debauched or doofy way, depending.</p>
<p>People sharing their time, money, and energy with those in need is entirely worth a Sunday <em>Times</em> profile. Using such a worthy topic—or any topic ever—as a platform from which to abuse another group of hard-working, caring people is shameful. And no, saying "It was a.....JOKE!" on <a title="Laughing, Comma, We are Not" href="https://twitter.com/GiniaNYT" target="_blank">Twitter</a> does not an apology make. Do better next time, Bellafante, and start by doing better now.</p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/douchebag-decree-ginia-bellafante-hurricane-sandy-moms#commentsGinia BellafanteHurricane SandyParentingThe New York TimesDouchebag Decree Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:32:11 +0000Katie Presley21327 at http://bitchmagazine.orgRead This: The Myth of the Male Declinehttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/read-this-the-myth-of-the-male-decline-feminist-magazine-women-men-work-economy
<p>"Contrary to the fears of some pundits, the ascent of women does not portend the end of men. It offers a new beginning for both." So argues Stephanie Coontz in the <em>New York Times</em> most emailed article (as of this morning), "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/the-myth-of-male-decline.html?pagewanted=1&amp;_r=0"target="_blank">The Myth of Male Decline</a>." Though polemics on the tanking of men as a gender abound these says, Coontz has some real talk—and some real data—to suggest there is a lot more to the "end of men" story:</p>
<p><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8170/8044211153_16c8c4e661_n.jpg" alt="an illustration from the article of a woman trying to break through the glass ceiling with men above her" align="left" hspace="10" /></p>
<blockquote><p>Proponents of the "women as the richer sex" scenario often note that in several metropolitan areas, never-married childless women in their 20s now earn more, on average, than their male age-mates.</p>
<p>But this is because of the demographic anomaly that such areas have exceptionally large percentages of highly educated single white women and young, poorly educated, low-wage Latino men. Earning more than a man with less education is not the same as earning as much as an equally educated man.</p></blockquote>
<p>BOOM. She adds that, "Among never-married, childless 22- to 30-year-old metropolitan-area workers with the same educational credentials, males out-earn females in every category." So much for men being "over."</p>
<p>Coontz also touches on some issues that probably aren't new to your average feminist, but it's nice to see them getting some love from the Grey Lady. Namely, that men are socialized to behave a certain way, like macho jerks, and to expect certain things, like male privilege, and that these expectations and gender norms can hinder their progress personally and professionally. *cough*feminism*cough*cough*</p>
<blockquote><p>Just as the feminine mystique discouraged women in the 1950s and 1960s from improving their education or job prospects, on the assumption that a man would always provide for them, the masculine mystique encourages men to neglect their own self-improvement on the assumption that sooner or later their "manliness" will be rewarded.</p></blockquote>
<p>Say what? Patriarchy is a bad thing?! Yes, we knew that already, but the more coverage it gets in mainstream media the better. It takes real money to fund studies like the ones Coontz references, and the more traction articles like this one get the more studies can be done in the future—and the more we can break down some of the gender norms that hold back people of all genders in their work and family lives. Who knows? The next most-emailed NYT article on economics and gender norms might present gender as a spectrum instead of a binary and then everyone's minds can really be blown. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/the-myth-of-male-decline.html?pagewanted=3&amp;_r=0"target="_blank">Read "The Decline of Men" here</a> and/or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/09/30/opinion/30coontz-gr1.html"target="_blank">check out this accompanying jobs graph here</a>. </p>
<p>[Image: Wendy MacNaughton via <em>New York Times</em>]</p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/read-this-the-myth-of-the-male-decline-feminist-magazine-women-men-work-economy#commentseconomicsmasculinityThe New York TimesworkSocial CommentaryMon, 01 Oct 2012 18:11:05 +0000Kelsey Wallace19093 at http://bitchmagazine.orgWTF Files: New York Times Wonders, "Are Modern Men Manly Enough?" http://bitchmagazine.org/post/wtf-files-new-york-times-are-modern-men-manly-enough-feminist-magazine-masculinity
<p><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7268/7562832648_cffda40f0a_o.jpg" alt="a white man with a face mask getting a pedicure" align="left" hspace="10" />The headline alone is enough to bring on an eye-roll headache: "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/07/12/are-modern-men-manly-enough/"target="_blank">Are Modern Men Manly Enough?"</a> And the head-desk-inducing subheaders will only make it worse: "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/07/12/are-modern-men-manly-enough/where-are-the-meat-and-potato-men"target="_blank">Where are the Meat and Potato Men?</a>" "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/07/12/are-modern-men-manly-enough/men-need-to-rediscover-the-don-draper-within"target="_blank">Rediscover the Don Draper Within</a>" and so on. The <em>Times</em> is <a href="https://twitter.com/NYTOnIt"target="_blank">no stranger to trumped-up trend pieces</a>, and the photo accompanying this article, of a man getting a—gasp!—pedicure, says it all ("it all" being: this is a gender panic piece because WHY ARE MEN GOING TO BEAUTY PARLORS? Real quote from this series: "We don't need to see you [men] in the nail salon; you have the barbershop."). Frankly, with all of the hand-wringing and gender policing, this <em>New York Times</em> opinion piece reads like, well, like it was written about women. After all, women are usually the ones whose very being is called into question by the mainstream media, especially in relation to men (Are you pleasing him in bed? Is your job a turnoff? Are you womanly enough?). But just as there's no one "real woman," the notion of a "real man" is bogus. Not that the <em>Times</em> agrees.</p>
<p>A manly man is:</p>
<blockquote><p>The kind of guy who can build you a log cabin on a whim with his own bare, callused hands; who can lift you up with one enveloping arm while the other steers the lawn mower; who can shamelessly peel the meat off a sparerib with his maxillary lateral incisors, like some sort of ravenous primate.</p></blockquote>
<p>Maybe feminism is to blame?</p>
<blockquote><p>I got messed up by my feminist mom in the 1970s, who taught me that gender was a social construct. I can't believe that social experiment went on as long as it did, since it's clear by month six of having a child that William does not want a doll. Ladies do go first. We are not free to be you and me.</p></blockquote>
<p>There is plenty of talk about meat, body odor, heterosexuality, and our <a href="/post/don-draper-the-most-influential-fake-man-of-2009"target="_blank">bizarre idolization of a fictional asshole</a>. </p>
<p>To be fair, this is a "Room For Debate" piece that includes a few more nuanced takes as well, but the overall tone is definitely one of stereotyping and heterosexual freak outs. As <a href="http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/07/12/are-modern-men-manly-enough/"target="_blank">Jill points out at Feministe</a>, "It's mostly a group of people whining about how men aren't sufficiently manly, without any real look at how we've constructed masculinity and how our limited views on men's roles do very real damage to all of us."</p>
<p>Interrogating stereotypes and questioning expectations is always a good thing, but when our paper of record is devoting column inches to berating men who dare to wear cologne or can't fix the sink, we're missing the point. And <em>Free to Be You and Me</em> is awesome, no matter what the <em>Times</em> has to say about it.</p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/wtf-files-new-york-times-are-modern-men-manly-enough-feminist-magazine-masculinity#commentsmasculinityThe New York TimesSocial CommentaryFri, 13 Jul 2012 17:20:09 +0000Kelsey Wallace17821 at http://bitchmagazine.orgWTF Files: New York Times Deems Camila Vallejo the "World’s Most Glamorous Revolutionary"http://bitchmagazine.org/post/wtf-files-new-york-times-camila-vallejo-the-world%E2%80%99s-most-glamorous-revolutionary-sexism-feminism-media
<p>Today in post-feminism-my-ass news, the <em>New York Times</em> homepage leads with the headline, "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/magazine/camila-vallejo-the-worlds-most-glamorous-revolutionary.html"target="_blank">Camila Vallejo, the World's Most Glamorous Revolutionary</a>."</p>
<p><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7261/7048462453_140349b151_o.jpg" alt="Vallejo, a young woman, stands in a crowd of television journalists" /><br />
<em>Ah, the glamour of it all.</em></p>
<p>This seven-page profile from the <em>New York Times</em> magazine by Francisco Goldman contains a lot of great reporting on the student strikes known as the Chilean Winter. Why, then, must we focus on Camila Vallejo's looks and the attention she gets from men?</p>
<blockquote><p>With guarded smiles, they let us know they supported the Chilean student movement and especially its most prominent leader, Camila Vallejo. A bartender said, "La Camila es valiente"; he laughed and added, "Está bien buena la mina"—"She's hot."</p>
<p>Camila Vallejo, the 23-year-old president of the University of Chile student federation (FECH), [is] a Botticelli beauty who wears a silver nose ring and studies geography.</p></blockquote>
<p>You know those "Botticelli beauties," right? Always organizing protests, leading movements, and standing up for what they believe in. Talking about their looks and framing them as glamourous is totally relevant! (No it isn't.)</p>
<blockquote><p>Vallejo waited her turn, standing within a small coterie of supporters. I noticed how the others doted on her, that she did most of the talking and that she made everyone laugh. Her eyes shone, and her smile was sometimes wry, even rakish.</p></blockquote>
<p>It sounds like Vallejo is very charismatic, and obviously an analysis of how she's received by the Chilean media and her supporters—including a discussion of her looks—could be relevant and quite interesting. However, kicking the article off by calling her the "World's Most Glamorous Revolutionary" and peppering it with anecdotes about how people are "always debating who is more beautiful" (Vallejo or a female leader of the Communist Youth movement), and how she can be seen "languorously kissing her boyfriend," obscures the Goldman's point—which is presumably to cover the movement and Vallejo's role in it—and is also just straight-up sexist. </p>
<p><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7048/7048462327_92eb816094_n.jpg" alt="a closeup photo of Vallejo wearing a nose ring" align="right" hspace="10" />On the last page of the article, Goldman quotes a colleague of Vallejo's who says, "Camila speaks in simple phrases, without technicalities, that people understand." Couldn't that be at least part of the reason she's an effective leader? Why bury her communication skills on page seven and lead with her silver nose ring instead? </p>
<p>Writers don't often have control over their own headlines, especially at a major media outlet like the <em>New York Times</em>, so it probably wasn't Goldman who went with the loaded term "glamourous" to describe Vallejo and her work. However, using a word that evokes images of movie stars lounging by the pool in marabou-trimmed robes while cabana boys bring them drinks doesn't exactly underscore the seriousness of the movement or the change Vallejo has effected in Chile. And it goes without saying that, were she not a woman, the headline editor's adjective of choice would be something decidedly less frivolous.</p>
<p>Toward the end of the piece, Goldman includes this exchange with Vallejo:</p>
<blockquote><p>I asked her about the politicians' reactions to her Calama visit, and she smiled. Calling the remarks "misogynist and very grotesque," she said they were an attempt "to try to isolate our leaders from the social movements."</p></blockquote>
<p>Couldn't the <em>New York Times</em>, with its focus on Camila Vallejo's feminine wiles, be accused of doing the same thing?</p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/wtf-files-new-york-times-camila-vallejo-the-world%E2%80%99s-most-glamorous-revolutionary-sexism-feminism-media#commentsCamila VallejoChilean WinterThe New York TimesSocial CommentaryThu, 05 Apr 2012 18:48:32 +0000Kelsey Wallace16171 at http://bitchmagazine.orgDouchebag Decree: Archie Andrews, Serial Flip-Flopperhttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/douchebag-decree-archie-andrews-flip-flopper
<p><center><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3214/3008635758_a8c6604670.jpg" /></center><br />
I only ever flipped through <i>Archie</i> comics while waiting in line to buy groceries, bored by the overwhelming whiteness of Riverdale and confused by Jughead's hat. But it always seemed weird that a series about such a squeaky-clean golly-gee group of teenagers revolved around something as potentially controversial as vague polyamory. The series is over 70 years old, and its technology has changed with the times (Betty blogs and Veronica snaps pictures with her camera phone) but its gender politics are completely outdated. Betty's worship of Archie is portrayed throughout the series as admirable loyalty rather than creepy unrequited dependency, while Archie's inability to retain even a casual commitment to just one girl is framed as… completely normal. So this week's Douchebag Decree goes to you, Archie Andrews, you sly dog. Make up your mind.</p>
<p><center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2568/4014256819_9558c3de36.jpg" /></center><br />
<center><i>Classic.</i></center></p>
<p>In case you've been living under a rock for the past 70 years, <i>Archie</i> is a serial comic with a number of spinoffs (<i>Archie &amp; Friends</i>, <i>Archie Digest</i>, <i>Tales from Riverdale</i>, etc) first published in 1942. The crux of the series is the "love triangle" between irascible ginger Archie Andrews, girl-next-door Betty and snooty-rich-girl Veronica Lodge. Betty and Veronica are best frenemies, and constantly do battle for Archie's affections.<br />
<center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2564/4015020216_fd68af2ffe.jpg" /></center><br />
Recently, the gang's story has begun winding down – they've graduated from high school and are heading off to college. In issue #600, Archie planned to propose to one of the girls, and in #601 it turned out to be Veronica. The New York Times reported the story, and readership shot up across the globe; Indian readers, in particular, got a lot more interested in The Gang. But fans were clearly angered by his choice of snobby Veronica over nice-girl Betty, as shown in the polls on Archie's website (about 80/20 in favor of Betty). </p>
<p>Here's where it gets weird: in the next couple of issues, it was revealed that the happy future that was written for Archie and Veronica was just a dream. Total cop-out, right? And a fairly advanced storytelling device for a comic that has operated in classic sitcom style for decades. Then Archie goes through another (absurdly similar) fantasy future, but this time with Betty. Apparently, in #604, we'll find out which future he actually picks. Or maybe it'll turn out that Veronica is Betty's Tyler Durden and Archie is just a hallucination, or Riverdale is a doll town and Betty is some sick schizotypal puppetmaster, or the girls are Stepford-bots eternally under Archie's control. Anything could happen.<br />
<center><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2622/4015020736_71d67a0db4.jpg" /></center></p>
<p>Everything is wrong with this love triangle. Betty is "sweet" and "wholesome" because of her enduring devotion to a guy who constantly ditches her for her best friend. Veronica is morally inferior to Betty because, well, she's not blonde, her interest in Archie sometimes wavers and she even has the audacity to (gasp!) <i>flirt with other guys</i>. The two girls are, of course, eternally obliged to throw themselves at Archie, despite his constant emotional abuse. There have been way too many creators and contributors to Archie Comics over the years to pin the blame for this shameless stereotyping on just one person, so I'm just going to have to hate the player (Archie) who represents the game.</p>
<p>Maybe asking why Archie can't just pick one girl already is as pointless as asking why Juno didn't just get an abortion: because then there would be no story. But after seventy years of infighting and petty competition and backhanded compliments and unhealthy obsessions (...this does sound kind of like high school), maybe that's not such a bad idea.</p>
<p><center><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3514/4015020300_f705249cb9.jpg" /></center><br />
<center><i>The real reason Archie won't make up his mind.</i></center></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/douchebag-decree-archie-andrews-flip-flopper#commentscomic bookscomicscomixcompetitionDouchebag DecreemarriageThe New York TimesHistoryThu, 15 Oct 2009 20:19:20 +0000Sara Reihani2367 at http://bitchmagazine.orgJonathan Safran Foer is "Against Meat." What about you?http://bitchmagazine.org/post/meat-matters-at-least-to-jonathan-safran-foer
<p>Today <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=food+issue&amp;more=past_7"><i>The New York Times</i> published their food issue.</a> (Mmm...) And while all of the articles are interesting (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11food-rules-t.html?scp=1&amp;sq=food%20issue&amp;st=cse">Michael Pollan talks food rules!</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11Oliver-t.html?scp=2&amp;sq=food%20issue&amp;st=cse">Jamie Oliver puts Huntington, W. Va. on a diet!</a>) the one that resonated with me the most was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11foer-t.html?pagewanted=1">"Against Meat" by Jonathan Safran Foer</a>. In it, he discusses his reasons for raising his kids (and himself) vegetarian, and I have to admit they are pretty compelling.</p>
<p>Foer, like me (and I'd guess many of you) originally became a vegetarian when he was an adolescent and began realizing that, yes, meat really does come from animals and yes, you really do have to kill the animals before you can eat them. Says Foer of going veg at that time,<br />
<blockquote>[I stopped eating meat] because it was the extension to food of everything my parents had taught me. We don't hurt family members. We don't hurt friends or strangers. We don't even hurt upholstered furniture. My not having thought to include farmed animals in that list didn't make them the exceptions to it. It just made me a child, ignorant of the world's workings. Until I wasn't.</blockquote></p>
<p>Of course, like my own teenybopper vegetarianism, Foer's antimeat lifestyle lasted for a few years, until it became a hassle, and it didn't seem quite that important anymore. Eventually, (and I am majorly paraphrasing a great article here, so do check out the original) he met a woman who shared his spotty meat-eating past, and the two of them became both engaged and Born Again Vegetarians. Until they weren't. Vegetarianism can be tough.</p>
<p>The article (which is a chapter from Foer's upcoming book <a href="http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/books_9780316069908_WhereToBuy.htm"><i>Eating Animals</i></a>) includes beautiful descriptions of past family meals of chicken and sushi that have meant much to Foer, and reasons why we as human beings love to eat meat (mostly because it tastes good, but also because of the aforementioned family meals and the ways in which food begets community). However, Foer reasons that this should not be the end-all-be-all rationalization behind our collective meaty diet. Another quote,<br />
<blockquote>A vegetarian diet can be rich and fully enjoyable, but I couldn't honestly argue, as many vegetarians try to, that it is as rich as a diet that includes meat. (Those who eat chimpanzee look at the Western diet as sadly deficient of a great pleasure.) I love calamari, I love roasted chicken, I love a good steak. But I don't love them without limit.</blockquote></p>
<p>It is because of this food consciousness (and darned sense making) that Foer and his wife decided to commit to vegetarianism full time, and to raise their two children in a meat-free kitchen. He makes a great case for the decision, citing statistics we've seen before that list meat production as the number one cause of global warming, and reminding us of how difficult it is to get actually ethically-produced meat. Again with the argument,<br />
<blockquote>This isn't animal experimentation, where you can imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Yet taste, the crudest of our senses, has been exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses. Why? Why doesn't a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to confining, killing and eating it? It's easy to dismiss that question but hard to respond to it. Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals.</blockquote></p>
<p>I am sharing this article here because food is decidedly a feminist issue, and as feminists I'm sure most of us have dedicated some brain cells to this topic. I myself quit being a vegetarian mainly out of laziness (and also because well, bacon is delicious), and have felt sporadically guilty about my eating habits since. When that has happened (the guilty feeling) in the past, I've taken a cue from Julie Andrews and thought of a few of my favorite things: tacos al pastor, chicken salad, spicy tuna rolls, etc. I have also taken a cue from food television, where hosts like Anthony Bourdain and Ina Garten make eating meat look <i>amazing</i> and where they basically make fun of you through the television if you aren't willing to go for second helpings on the tripe casserole. </p>
<p>Foer is giving me pause here, though. After all, there are lots of things I'd like to do (shoplifting, skipping work, telling certain people on the bus how I <i>really</i> feel about their decision to chew gum in my ear, etc.) that I choose not to because it would be unethical. Why don't I subject my diet to this same scrutiny?</p>
<p>Of course, this is a privileged person's problem. Many people all over the world don't have the option of becoming vegetarian, or vegan, or eating organic, or even eating at all. I, however, do. And so does Jonathan Safran Foer, and so do many others of us who read <i>The New York Times</i> and write blog posts and live within a mile of about six grocery stores. Can we continue to eat meat and not think twice about it? </p>
<p>I'll be honest; after reading Foer's book excerpt I made myself a vegetarian dinner (which was pretty good). However, for lunch I had beef Pho (which was deeelicious), so I can't claim to be on the wagon just yet. I'd be interested though, in hearing how others of you are responding to this piece. Do you eat meat? If so, do you feel okay about that decision? How do you rationalize your food choices when it comes to the environment and your own code of ethics? Or are you (like me, though I hope to change) too easily convinced that you should spend your time thinking about other things, like how delicious a club sandwich sounds right about now? What's a hungry feminist to do?</p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/meat-matters-at-least-to-jonathan-safran-foer#commentsanimal rightsfood politicsJonathan Safran FoermeatThe New York TimesBooksMon, 12 Oct 2009 04:29:28 +0000Kelsey Wallace2341 at http://bitchmagazine.org